Lauren cupped her hands around her eyes like binoculars to shield them from the sun and jogged across the street. The up-and-down motion made the peanut butter sandwich and chips she’d had for lunch rise up in her throat, but she swallowed hard and the feeling went away.
She slipped in between Frank’s Deli and Best Electronics even though she didn’t want to run into any rats while she was on her own. It was the fastest way back to her bike from there, and the only thing that mattered at the moment was getting to her cool, dark bedroom as soon as possible.
She was so intent on reaching the woods that she didn’t even glance at the back door of the electronics shop. She didn’t realize Jake Hanson was standing there again until he said, “Hey, Lauren,” in his lazy drawling way.
It startled her, and she gave a little clipped-off scream. Her heart pounded in her chest and she knew there was no help for it now. She stumbled a few feet forward, crouched down, and put her head between her knees.
“Lauren?” Jake asked, and to his credit he didn’t sound drawling anymore—confused maybe, or concerned.
She shook her head from side to side, though she didn’t know if she was trying to stave off the inevitable vomit or just Jake’s approach.
Then it came, and her cheeks burned with humiliation as she puked out her lunch a few feet away from Jake Hanson, wishing all the while that he would just go back inside and leave her alone.
She vaguely heard the sound of the back door closing, and thought, Good.
After a few minutes she thought she was done, but then her stomach did that tricky thing where it reminded her that there was still a teaspoon of half-digested food left inside her, and she gagged and coughed and out came the rest.
She stayed where she was, waiting to see if there was anything else. Cold sweat beaded on her temples and pooled in the small of her back and soaked the underarms of her T-shirt. She smelled the baby-powder scent of her deodorant and the sharp tang of bile and the garbage rotting in the cans behind the deli.
“Here,” Jake’s voice said behind her.
Lauren nearly tipped forward into the pile of her own puke. She hadn’t heard him come out of the store again. A second later she felt one of his hands on her back, and then a plastic cup of water materialized in front of her face.
“Thanks,” she said. Her voice sounded croaky, not like her own.
His hand on her back felt huge and hot and she couldn’t decide if she liked it or if she wanted him to stop.
The point was moot a second later because he took his hand away and said, “Better?”
She nodded. Her face felt redder than it had ever been, like it was literally on fire. The only thing that would make this worse would be if Miranda suddenly showed up. Lauren glanced fearfully over her shoulder then, as if just the thought of Miranda would summon her.
Miranda wasn’t there, but Jake was crouched next to her. He didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered by the fact that Lauren had gotten sick in front of him. She hoped he wouldn’t tell his friends about it later.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
She nodded again and dug her hands into her thighs as she pushed up. Everything swam before her for a second, including Jake’s blue eyes (they really are very blue, she thought, dark blue, like sapphires) and then the world righted itself. Now to get away as soon as possible.
Jake had been really nice, really cool actually about the whole thing, but that didn’t mean Lauren wanted to stand there and have a conversation with him while she was pale and shaky and badly needed a toothbrush.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I get, um, headaches,” Lauren said. “Really bad ones.”
“Migraines,” he said, nodding wisely. “My mom gets them, too.”
Lauren squinted at him, because the sun was still high and bright and opening her eyes too wide made her head throb. “Well, thanks for the water,” she said, flapping her hand at her side nervously.
Why doesn’t he go back inside? she wondered. Wasn’t he supposed to be working? Why was he just standing there looking at her like she’d just flown in on an alien ship?
“I get off in a half hour,” he said. “If you want a ride home instead of walking.”
“Oh,” Lauren said. “Um, thanks, but I left my bike in the woods. I have to go get it or my mom will freak.”
“You spend a lot of time in the woods, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, wondering why he was trying to have a conversation with her.
“Brave girl,” he said.
She didn’t know what to say to this. She knew that her opinion of the woods was not a majority one, but she didn’t think a guy like Jake Hanson would be afraid of a few trees. Then again, she’d been shocked to discover that her father hadn’t liked the forest, either.
“Thanks again,” she said, and turned toward the woods, giving him a little half wave.
“See you around, Lauren,” he said softly.
She didn’t look back over her shoulder, but she was sure he watched her until she disappeared from sight.
The shade of the trees made her feel better almost immediately, although the headache didn’t disappear—just receded a little bit, like a fighter taking two steps back before charging in again with a flurry of punches. Still, she thought she might be able to get to her bike and make it home without fainting, which was the key thing.
Lauren had almost reached the ghost tree and her bike when she felt it—a strange sort of shifting, although the shifting wasn’t anything external that she could tell. The trees all stood in their usual places and the wind rustled their branches like always and her feet were firmly planted on the ground and her stomach wasn’t even queasy any longer.
But still—there had been something. A feeling that made her skin prickle and her left eye twitch and cold sweat pool at the base of her spine.
She shook her head even though it made her headache feel like it was knocking from side to side inside her skull. Those were all things that happened to other people when they walked in the woods that bordered Smiths Hollow. They got spooky feelings and broke out in a sweat and talked about ghosts and devils in whispers. But Lauren never felt these things. The woods had always made her feel safe.
Even when they found her father dead under the trees with his heart torn out, Lauren had never blamed the woods. How could it be the fault of nature if her father had gone out in the middle of the night for some reason that her mother would not discuss?
But she’d felt something just now, something like a . . .
A presence.
But that was beyond stupid. There was no floating presence out here, only Lauren and the trees and the chipmunks scampering into the brush.